Full Coverage: Boys of Fall (9 page)

Randi watched him struggle to put words to the situation. But she got it. And he was right. She debated for a moment over what she was tempted to say, but finally she said, “You know those paddleball games? The ones with the wooden paddle and the ball tied to it on a string? You hit the ball out and away but it always snaps back?”

Nolan nodded.

“That’s what it seemed like to me. We were all these little balls, bouncing around, but tied to football. The home games snapped us all back, no matter how far out from it we got.”

Nolan just watched her for a minute. Then he said, “Can I quote you?”

She laughed and ducked her head back under the hood. “Oh, sure. Quote away.” It was a cheesy metaphor. She wasn’t good with words, but that was how she felt.

“So, we both know it’s fair to say that football ties this town together,” Nolan said.

“Definitely. It doesn’t matter how much money you make or where you live or where you go to church or who you voted for—when you’re in those stands, you’re a Titan. You wear black and silver and you root for the same thing and you’re…part of something bigger.”

She needed to stop talking. She sounded like an idiot. It was a football game. It was crazy to get so serious about a
game
.

But she did. They all did. Nolan might not get it, but everyone else who sat in those bleachers got it and would agree with her.

“And even though other things were going on in the stands and parking lot and at the concession stand, it was still all about the game,” she said. She needed to talk about other people. That way she could talk about the fandom but it wasn’t about her directly. He could think they were collectively nuts. Because they were. “Like the three little old ladies who make every game a drinking game.”

Nolan laughed. “Really?”

“Really. The youngest of them is eighty-six and they have no relatives playing anymore, but they come to every game and sneak their flasks in and play their game.”

“No one else knows?”

“Oh, everyone knows. They probably wouldn’t even have to hide the flasks anymore. They don’t drive—one of their daughters drops them off and picks them up—and they don’t cause any trouble, so no one tries to stop them. Plus they watch avidly. They have new rules each game. Like one game it might have been a drink every time Jackson got a first down or every time Wade punted farther than forty yards or something. Then the next game it would be new rules.”

Nolan was grinning. “How did you know?”

Randi shrugged. “I’m not sure. They were at every game. I think I started listening in on their conversations because they really knew what they were talking about.”

“And you were paying attention to them instead of the game?”

She straightened and pinned him with a don’t-ever-say-that-again look. “I paid attention to every play of every game, Mr. Winters. Don’t ever doubt me.”

He didn’t looked chagrined at all. “Sorry, Ms. Doyle. I misspoke.”

“Yeah, you did.” She went back to the car.

“So what else?”

“What else? Oh, you mean the game?” She’d been talking about one of the games from the boys’ senior year. “That one was the one where Colt broke free for an eighty-yarder.”

“No, what else in the stands?”

She looked over at him. He seemed genuinely interested in the extraneous stories. And Randi had about a million.

“Well, there was the stuff that went on behind the stands too,” she said. “That was where Jason Dawes found out that Missy was pregnant.”

Nolan’s eyes widened. “She told him at the game?”

“He bought her a hot dog and she ran behind the bleachers and puked her guts out.”

Nolan shook his head again and wrote.

“You can’t put that in your book,” she protested.

“I won’t use their names and I can change up the details,” he said. “But this is…this is football in Quinn. It’s not just the guys on the field. It’s everyone’s game.”

She nodded. “You can’t be the pride and joy if no one’s proud or joyful.”

Nolan looked up at her. “I’m quoting you on that too.”

He was funny. She went back to the truck. And kept talking.

“Okay, so second half of that game was pretty boring. No one scored and we went a solid quarter without even a first down on either side.”

“Tell me more people stories,” he interrupted.

“Really?” she asked as she exchanged her wrench for a smaller one.

“Yeah. I mean a lot of people know the game stats. But no one else has told me any of these other stories.”

That’s because they were just stories. But Randi shrugged. She liked having him here with her while she worked and if he wanted to hear stories, she could tell stories.

“Okay, well, there have been at least a dozen proposals during games.”

“I knew of a couple,” Nolan said. “But that many?”

“Oh easily. And then Shelly Corver went into labor and delivered her baby in the press box.”

The press box was a fancy name for the wooden box that sat at the top of the bleachers where the announcer sat. The
Quinn Quibbler
covered the game, but Blake Thomas, the sole owner and reporter, sat in the stands with his buddies. The local radio station, WKKP, covered the games from there though, and when it got to play-off time, a couple of television station reporters would cram into the tiny box.

“No kidding,” Nolan said. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yep. And they named him Titan.”

“Shelly Corver named her son Titan?” Nolan repeated.

Randi nodded.

“What else?”

He looked fascinated, which made Randi smile. “There was the time a couple years ago when a bunch of girls got into a big rumble in the parking lot.”

“What?”

“Yep. They were players’ sisters and they got to talking tough with some of the girls from another school. Turned into a great big cat fight.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Carter couldn’t break it up by himself so Joel and Oakley and Colt jumped in to help him. Ended up with scratches and bruises all over. Carter got a bloody nose and Colt ended up with a black eye. The girls were scrappy.”

“How old were these girls?”

Randi grinned. “Sixth grade.”

Nolan lifted an eyebrow. “Carter, Joel, Oakley and Colt got beat up pulling a bunch of sixth-grade girls apart?”

“Yep.” She paused. “You should definitely write that one down.”

He agreed. “Start over. How many little girls were there?”

* * *

T
he annual Valentine’s
Day party was actually a dance. Held at the Quinn Community Center and involving cookies, punch, and lots of pink and red carnations.

It was a family-friendly event and people from three to ninety-three could be found dancing among the pink and white balloons and streamers.

The real party happened afterward at Pitchers, though. That’s where the grownups went to dance a little closer and drink something other than punch.

But Randi wasn’t sure she’d ever felt better than she did folded in Nolan’s arms in the middle of the tile floor in the community center, with her friends all dancing with their guys around her.

This was nice. This was sweet. Pink streamers, tiny confetti hearts all over everything, Frank Sinatra coming from the speakers.

She’d never danced to Frank Sinatra in her life. She wasn’t sure she’d ever touched a pink streamer. She was pretty sure she’d never eaten a sugar cookie shaped like cupid.

This was all very romantic to her. Cheesy, clichéd, sappy. And she loved it.

Nolan had given her a Valentine. She loved that too.

She’d avoided all of this because she didn’t know what to do with it. Romance meant someone thought she was special. Extra special. When someone thought you were extra special, they expected you to act like it.

She’d always felt pretty…normal. Average intelligence, nice, attractive. But she wasn’t brilliant, she wasn’t amazingly talented in any way, she hadn’t started a charity like their classmate Melanie had, she wasn’t stunningly beautiful. She was fun, social, a good friend. She owned her own business. She loved her parents. All of those things made her a nice person. But they didn’t really make her extraordinary.

Nolan made her feel extraordinary.

That made her nervous. She wasn’t sure she could measure up to that. Especially with a guy like Nolan. His experience with intelligent, nice, and attractive all went well beyond Quinn. Randi was average in
Quinn
. She didn’t want to know where she fell on the whole-world spectrum. But for tonight, she was being seduced by streamers and sugar cookies and she was letting herself go with it.

This wasn’t hot sex, or a drinking game at the river, or dirty dancing at Pitchers. This was sweet and romantic. This made her feel special.

Nolan ran his hand up her spine and into her hair at the back of her head. He put his mouth to her ear. “Thank you for coming with me.”

“Thank you for asking,” she said honestly.

They’d spent the last few days together at the shop, talking football. He showed up, with coffee, when she opened and he left at closing time. They hadn’t had dinner together. They hadn’t kissed. They definitely hadn’t had sex again. It was like once he’d asked her to be his Valentine, things had slowed down and gotten sweeter.

But she was kind of hoping that tonight would end naked between the sheets.

“Everyone’s going to Pitchers in a little bit,” Nolan said, his low voice rumbling in her ear and giving her goose bumps. “Should we join them?”

Randi kept her head on his shoulder, thinking about the question. In the past, anyone saying “want to go to Pitchers?” would have been a no-brainer. But she hesitated tonight. She’d had visions of strawberries and whipped cream and satin sheets going.

Of course, she didn’t have satin sheets and she’d have to stop at the store for whipped cream. She sighed. Typical.

“Sure.”

“Great.”

He stroked his hand up and down her back and she snuggled closer. It was a holiday. She had to remember that. One day that made people do unusual things, think about romance more than they normally would, say sweeter things than they normally would. She needed to not read anything into it. She and Nolan had some chemistry and he was home gathering some information for his book, and why not throw some hot sex with a willing girl into the mix? No one would blame him.
She
wouldn’t blame him.

So she might as well enjoy the holiday too. She liked Christmas, even knowing it would end. She enjoyed her birthday every year even though it was only one day. This was the same thing.

* * *

N
olan watched
Randi belly up to the bar with her girlfriends. Again.

The after-party at Pitchers was a stark contrast to the community center dance. Country music blared from the jukebox, bodies pressed closer, hands wandered farther and the glasses that were being tipped back were filled with a lot more than fruit punch.

Randi was on her third Cupid’s Cock shot with the girls. It was something pink and he thought he’d heard her say something about “might as well have my strawberries this way”, but he was staying far away from the shot. Beer was fine with him. It looked like he was going to be her designated driver anyway.

She tipped her head back, swallowed the liquor, and set the glass down with a thunk, laughing with the girls.

They hadn’t even spoken since they’d gotten here. Lorelie and Lela had pulled her up to the bar the minute they’d walked in, and she’d been drinking and talking to the girls since.

The other women were all here with someone as well, and some of those guys weren’t put off by the closely formed female circle. Jackson walked right up, slid his arms around Annabelle from behind and tucked her close, whispering in her ear. She’d giggled and turned her head to kiss him, but she’d stayed at the bar. And he’d stayed right behind her. Tucker was there with Lela too, leaning an elbow casually on the bar, nursing a beer and watching the women with an amused look on his face. He wasn’t intervening but he wasn’t getting too far away, either.

The only guys really standing back were him and the new guy, Glen. The guy who was hung up on Lorelie Carr. Coach’s daughter. Nolan didn’t even need his journalistic skills to figure that out. Everyone knew. Coach’s boys, the football teammates who had been in high school when Lorelie was—the state championship team Nolan was writing about—had been Lorelie’s protectors, adopted big brothers, and no one came sniffing around her without them knowing it. And warning the guy off.